DAYTON, Tenn. — Bryan College was founded on the back of the country’s most famous debate over creation and evolution.

And the biblical literalists, the stalwarts, the six-day creationists flocked here even when society began tipping toward a more scientific understanding of human origins, when Darwin, not Genesis, became the more convincing explanation for many.

But over the years, more diverse views on Genesis 1 and 2 crept in. Some professors, staff and students didn’t just identify as young-Earth creationists. Their views became more nuanced. They called themselves progressive evolutionists and theistic evolutionists and old-Earth creationists; they found ways to reconcile faith and science.

Now the administration is making a statement against these aberrations. The board of trustees is requiring professors and staff to sign a statement saying that they believe Adam and Eve were created in an instant by God and that humans shared no ancestry with other life forms. If they don’t sign, they fear that jobs could be on the line.

You might think everyone at Bryan College disavowed Darwin years ago. After all, the liberal arts school is named in honor of William Jennings Bryan, the man who helped prosecute the 1925 Scopes Trial. The college was founded in 1930, and Bryan’s legacy is one of the first things that comes up on campus tours.